British No. 1 Jack Draper was taken the distance once more but kept his Australian Open dream alive with a battling win against Aleksandar Vukic, and Carlos Alcaraz awaits in round four
Draper, the 15th seed, needed five sets to come through each of his first two matches down under. Mariano Navone took him the distance in round one, before Aussie favourite Thanasi Kokkinakis came desperately close to a second round upset.
The British star made a faster start against Vukic, taking the first set 6-4. However, he then dropped the next two to leave his opponent in control.
Draper saved a number of fourth set break points against the 28-year-old, who was playing in the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. He won a tense tie-break to take the match to a fifth set, and won that in another tie-break after home favourite Vukic forced him to dig deep in a match that lasted four hours.
Draper went into the tournament short of practice, having suffered injury issues in the lead-up. A hip problem kept him out of the United Cup, and the Australian Open represented his first action since losing to Alex de Minaur in the Paris Masters in October.
“My body doesn’t feel too great, luckily I have a good physio!” he said after beating Vukic. “I think mentally I have really competed hard. I have loved the atmosphere and playing in front of loads of people. It’s given me a lot of energy to keep pushing, so I’m surprising myself.
“I’m just thinking about my recovery and getting off the court to be honest. I don’t want to think about [Alcaraz] yet. Carlos is a special talent, an unbelieve player and someone I have a good relationship with. I think it’s going to be an incredible match and hopefully my body pulls up and I can give it my all. It will be a great contest.”
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Earlier on Friday, Draper’s fellow Brit Jacob Fearnley saw his run come to an end. The youngster got the better of Nick Kyrgios in the opening round and overcame Arthur Cazaux in round two, but couldn’t repeat the trick against second seed Alexander Zverev.
Novak Djokovic joined Zverev in claiming a straight-sets win, with his coming against Thomas Machac. Djokovic will face Jiri Lehecka in round four after the Czech 26th seed beat Benjamin Bonzi.
In the women’s singles draw, Coco Gauff progressed with a win against Leylah Fernandez. She will now take on Belinda Bencic, who took the first set against Naomi Osaka before her opponent retired from the match with an injury.
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